I am aware many of these posts/initiatives cover things I will say here, but I wanted to focus specifically in the multiplayer “social side”, which is the main reason for me (and probably for many) for loving AOE3 multiplayer. I will leave civ balance, maps and this kind of things aside.
I will try not to mention how things are in DE, since we all know them and it would make the post 2x long.
Why is (or was ☹) AOE3 multiplayer so great:
Let’s start from the beginning: The player account, or in game name:
In ESO one copy or CD key of the game is linked to one unique player account. That is your account, people know you by it and you know people by theirs. You get to know players, what civs they are good with, how they like to lame or not and so on.
You cannot change your account name and no other player in the world can have the same account name.
Let’s continue with how easy ESO makes it to be aware of who is online, what they are doing and interacting with fellow players. Chatting, finding games, inviting to games or clans or getting info from any existing account is super easy and straightforward. A couple of great things:
- Your list of friends is visible no matter in what tab of ESO you are, even if you are in a game room. There is a green circle if they are online, red if they are offline and a AOE3 symbol if they are online and playing. You can chat, check the profile or invite to a game in just 2 clicks on any of the names in your list.
- If you don’t have all the people online in your friend list (there is a limit), you can quickly get an idea of what’s going on by checking who is in each of the games in the game browser. You don’t need to join the game rooms, clicking on any game will show you the full list of players in it! Combine this with the ability to order games by rank and you will quickly have an overview of who in your rank range is online and what they are playing.
- There is a tab in ESO (called Homecities) where you can see details about your account and about any existing account. Things like when was the account created, Homecities for each civ, clan name, ranked power rating/skill level, games played, % of victories and game experience.
- You can easily access any player’s account information from a game room via a couple of clicks on their name. And you know what? A summary of this information will be shown right by the players name in a game room just by placing your mouse over their name.
In ESO there is a ranking system. This is for me part of the social aspect and an essential part of playing multiplayer competitively. Be it called elo, a PR number, skill level, bronze, silver or challenger (sorry there), it is needed and it needs to be shown for each player in game rooms.
Now onto playing the game I want with the players I want – custom game browsing
ESO allows you to play ranked or unranked games via the game browser. It also allows to find 1v1 and team games via quick search. I would say 95% of games played above pr 20 in the custom games browser are ranked. I’d bet my life 100% of team games played are played via de game browser.
The game browser allows you to sort games by game rules, nr of players etc. …and rank of the host, so it is super easy to find your type of game. As said before, one can see players in the different rooms without having to join.
For me, the game browser and the ability to play ranked through it is critical for the experience and is a main differentiator with other platforms (SCII, AOEII DE, LoL…). Here is where you get to know people by waiting for a game to start, here you can arrange teams so they are fair, here is where you can decide you won’t play with a low skill level player because it won’t be fair and fun, here is where you can try to get into the all high level game and have a try at being allowed to play with the pros in it… I think this kind of game browsing is a key element in building the community.
Guys, it would be nice to know your thoughts on this and get more ideas to be added or modify what you think is not so important or does not make sense. Feel super free to use this post or any part of it in any way that may contribute to prevent the death of the multiplayer of AOEIII as we know it.
I'd love to post this in the official forums, but I can't seem to get my account validated (tried with 2 different MS accounts). So, feel free to post it, edit it, take some part of it or w.e.
Thanks for reading and happy gaming!